Fred Thompson all over the map, campaign growing stagnant

BRISTOL, N.H. (AP) – Presidential hopeful Fred Thompson said Friday that New York City isn’t a model for the rest of the country and that Rudy Giuliani should stop basing his stances on his time as that city’s mayor.

Thompson, campaigning at a New Hampshire gun store with stuffed moose and deer overhead, told reporters that Giuliani too often turns to his time as New York mayor to explain his support for stronger gun restrictions.

“He relates everything to New York City. Well, New York City is not emblematic of the rest of the country, I don’t think. I think the sentiments of those people in the rest of the country are in support of the Second Amendment – which is where I’ve always been and I don’t think he’s ever been,” Thompson said.

For the most part I’d agree with Fred on this, a city, for the most part, does not equal the entire rest of the country. However, New York City has a bigger population than several states so it’s like managing a state in and of itself.

ORANGE CITY, Iowa â€” Republican Fred Thompson tried to rev up support for his presidential campaign Tuesday by comparing his Democratic rivals to race car drivers who only know how to turn left.

“It’s like they’re all in training for the NASCAR, you know, nothing but a left turn, just steady as she goes, all the way around,” he said at a coffee house in northeastern Iowa.

Thompson, who is running fourth in Iowa polls for the GOP nomination, said Democrats will wind up where they were in 1972, when George McGovern lost to Richard Nixon on an anti-Vietnam War platform.

“I don’t think the United States of America is prepared to turn the keys over to the most left-wing part of the left-wing party,” he said.

Cute, but nothing worth writing home about. Imagine, a Republican claiming the Democrats are too left wing.

Finally, The Politico has a story on Thompson’s motivations throughout the race and questioning the impact he’ll have on the primaries:

Fred Thompson prefers plain talk. So he might bridle at using a famous Winston Churchill quote to sum up his presidential campaign: “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

But with fewer than 50 days to go until the Iowa caucuses, no piece of the primary puzzle is more perplexing than just what sort of impact the former Tennessee senator will have.

After a long-awaited and overly hyped debut, Thompson endured a gaffe-prone first few weeks. After suffering through lampooning so severe that it even broke through the pop culture bubble via “Saturday Night Live,” Thompson has sought to bounce back by focusing on his true passion: policy and ideas.

True, Thompson has seemed to be slightly reinvigorated with the Right to Life endorsement but what that’s done for his weary supporters, I’m not sure. However, too many still question whether he and his campaign are in the right position to take the nomination and actually put up a defense against the eventual Democratic nominee.

Unless something drastically changes for Thompson between now and the Iowa caucus on January 3rd, I believe he will be another one added to the list of former 2008 Republican Presidential candidates.